Engineering Commons^™

Miniature Cone Penetration Tests With Shear Wave Velocity And Electrical Resistivity Measurements In Characterization Of Silica Sand, Ronit Ganguly

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Geotechnical engineering design and analysis require sound identification and characterization of in-situ soil. To characterize is to gather information about the engineering properties of a particular soil which will affect the performance of any structure built on it. As a result of complications associated with the retrieving of undisturbed samples of cohesionless soils, calibration chamber-based experiments under controlled laboratory settings are used for the determination of several geotechnical engineering parameters. The capability of a reduced-scale calibration chamber-based cone penetration testing system along with shear wave velocity and electrical resistivity measurements, to better characterize in-situ soil is examined in this study. …

High Strain Dynamic Test On Helical Piles: Analytical And Numerical Investigations, Mohammed Fahad Alwalan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Helical piles are currently considered a preferred foundation option in a wide range of engineering projects to provide high compressive and uplift resistance to static and dynamic loads. In view of the large capacity of large diameter helical piles, there is a need to determine their capacity using accurate and economically feasible testing techniques. The capacity of piles is usually determined by conducting a Static Load Test (SLT). However, the SLT can be costly and time consuming, especially for large capacity piles. The High Strain Dynamic Load Test (HSDT) evaluates the pile capacity using dynamic measurements generated through subjecting the …

Experimental And Numerical Evaluation Of A Novel Piling System For Sound Wall Applications, Daniel Mroz

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Drilled shafts are conventionally used as foundations for sound walls. However, steel piles can provide faster installation and immediate utilization. The purpose of this research program is to evaluate a novel pile concept which comprises an H-pile modified to better resist typical load patterns faced by sound wall piles including lateral force and moment from wind and uplift force from adfreeze. The modifications include one or two plates welded to the pile and soil anchors (nodes) welded along the pile flange.

A full-scale pile load testing program was performed on sixteen piles which included monotonic and cyclic lateral load tests …

The Effect Of Stiffness Anisotropy Of A Glacial Clay On The Behaviour Of A Shallow Wind Turbine Foundation, Jesús A. González-Hurtado

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Shallow wind turbine foundations are designed based on investigations of the ultimate, serviceability and fatigue limit states. The serviceability limit state design approaches in particular are based on simple isotropic elastic half-space analyses that ignore coupling between loading directions, and soil non-linearity and elastic anisotropy. Many of the wind farms in Ontario are constructed around the Great Lakes basin and a number of these areas are characterized as stiff clayey glacial tills. It is recognized that many of these glacial materials exhibit some degree of strength, stiffness and fabric anisotropy. This research aimed to characterize the anisotropic geotechnical properties of …

Studies On The Liquefaction Behaviour Of Tailings And Natural Sand, Guillermo Riveros

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This series of studies explores the liquefaction behaviour of cohesionless mine tailings and a natural sand and examines the effectiveness of a bio-mediated treatment for the mitigation of liquefaction. The first study investigates the flow liquefaction failure of the Fundão tailings dam (2015) by analytically assessing the stability of the breached abutment, accounting for the specific triggering mechanism and subsequent strength loss that led to its collapse. The second study evaluates the static liquefaction behaviour of gold mine tailings and its correlations with shear-wave velocity through an experimental program comprised of direct simple-shear and bender element tests. The last study …

Performance Of Pressure Grouted Helical Piles Under Monotonic Axial And Lateral Loading, Mohamed A. Mansour

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The pressure grouted helical pile (PGHP) is an innovative pile foundation system that allows a significant increase in the helical pile capacity with some additional cost. The pile is constructed by applying pressurized grout during the installation of a closed ended helical pile through two grout nozzles welded to the hollow pile shaft. Torquing PGHP into the ground allows the grout nozzles to create a cavity around the pile shaft. The cavity then expands under the effect of pressurized grout and helix rotation. This thesis presents a comprehensive laboratory study and three-dimensional finite element analysis to investigate the effects of …

Advances In Design Methodology In Swelling Shale Rock In Southern Ontario, Thomas R.A. Lardner

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As infrastructure requirements increase in southern Ontario, excavations within swelling rock formations will become more frequent and larger. The objective of this study is to advance design capability for structures in swelling rock through three aspects: i) developing a practical swelling model for design engineers, ii) investigate two crushable/compressible materials for the mitigation of swelling rock effects, and iii) observe and analyze the behaviour of swelling rock to current excavation techniques.

A swelling rock constitutive model has been developed. The swelling parameters include the horizontal and vertical free swell potential, threshold stress, and critical stress as well as a “pseudo-Poisson’s …